Blu-ray disc sales are slipping according to Sony

Yesterday, during a presentation at CEDIA,Sony inadvertantly let it slip that Blu-ray disc sales were slipping and that in April HD DVD sales were actually tied with Blu-ray sales.

The chart at right, presented by Sony, was aimed to show Blu-ray's superiority but instead showed a more interesting trend, the fact that both formats have had declining sales since December. Blu-ray however, is dropping more sharply.

What does these facts mean in the long run? Hard to tell now, but it does seem that more and more consumers are waiting until prices drop or there is one clear cut format winner. We will see how new players and wider selection of HD movies will play into the stats but for the time being, both formats are losing.

Well tbh I think that by now the few who might still believe Blu-ray's 'we already won' line really ought to be waking up to reality, Blu-ray have won nothing.

In fact after the Viacom/Paramount move there is little chance of Blu-ray actually 'winning' at all.

Check out the notepad/laptop situation.
HD DVD has 4 of the top 5 (Toshiba, Acer, HP and Asus) producing HD DVD equipped laptop/notepad computers
(and by that I mean actually producing models right now rather than merely announcing association to the BDA as was the case with Acer yesterday).

Quote:Estimates are that by the end of 2007, there will be 30 million more HD DVD notebooks sold, with 16 million of those to consumer, not corporate customers.

An industry insider we talked to said: "This appears to be smart a move from Toshiba, and although an optical drive could be argued as a very different format to a next-gen DVD player, if it increases software sales, and take up of their next-gen platform among even a moderate proportion of those 16 million notebook customers, you could argue that HD DVD could win this 'war' by the back door".

(and sells to a section of the public with high disposable incomes, who are more likely to buy HD movies and have high-end HD TVs?
.....and spread this news amongst friends who have high disposable etc etc)

Quote:Well tbh I think that by now the few who might still believe Blu-ray's 'we already won' line really ought to be waking up to reality, Blu-ray have won nothing.

In fact after the Viacom/Paramount move there is little chance of Blu-ray actually 'winning' at all.

Check out the notepad/laptop situation.
HD DVD has 4 of the top 5 (Toshiba, Acer, HP and Asus) producing HD DVD equipped laptop/notepad computers
(and by that I mean actually producing models right now rather than merely announcing association to the BDA as was the case with Acer yesterday).

Quote:Estimates are that by the end of 2007, there will be 30 million more HD DVD notebooks sold, with 16 million of those to consumer, not corporate customers.

An industry insider we talked to said: "This appears to be smart a move from Toshiba, and although an optical drive could be argued as a very different format to a next-gen DVD player, if it increases software sales, and take up of their next-gen platform among even a moderate proportion of those 16 million notebook customers, you could argue that HD DVD could win this 'war' by the back door".

(and sells to a section of the public with high disposable incomes, who are more likely to buy HD movies and have high-end HD TVs?
.....and spread this news amongst friends who have high disposable etc etc)

and the 300 or 500K HDVD 360 add ons is nothing to sneeze at :P

really tho theres a lot of waves coming and it can take both formats with it.

"a bad film looks even worse in hi-def format"
that's true but there are simple facts that doesn't make it woth

1- it's more exapensive, plus you need a nice tv wich is not cheap
2- when are you gonna play it Hd-dvd(Not a problem) Blu-ray (A problem)
3- If most Americans don't own the electronics to view this properly, how about the rest of the world.

So Time(couple of years at least i think ) will tell wich one is the best in the meanwhile let's all be happy wich Dl-Dvd's! :)

Whomever has the best overall prices is going to be the one who wins. Costco warehouses and costco.com are selling ToshibaHD-DVD players for $249 and they are flying out the doors. I haven't seen any Blue-ray players anywhere around town for under $479 yet.

Proof the war is far from over. I wouldn't really call this a reason for HD DVD to celebrate. "1 month we almost sold the same!" That's like almost winning a fight, you still got your @$$ kicked and that's all people remember.

The one good thing to come out of Blu-ray's development is the better anti-scratch coating.......and now people like TDK have woken up to the benefits of using it on their other media as a selling point.

Ludikhris, pretty desperate stuff there.

'The one thing (most) people are remembering', I think you'll find is that at the start of the year the Blu-ray gang claimed to have already won this.
They haven't.

As more and more HD DVD players get sold the clear and obvious higher HD DVD retail movie disc attachment rates will overtake and leave Blu-ray movie disc sales permanently trailing......what then for those studios and hardware manufacturers still exclusive on the BD side, hmmmmmmm?

Originally posted by hughjars: As more and more HD DVD players get sold the clear and obvious higher HD DVD retail movie disc attachment rates will overtake and leave Blu-ray movie disc sales permanently trailing......what then for those studios and hardware manufacturers still exclusive on the BD side, hmmmmmmm?

:P

I have 1 problem with this HD-DVD players don't sell or don't exist outside the USA.

How could a format win if they don't exist in 7+ markets and only just bearly scrape by in 1 market.

Originally posted by hughjars: Estimates are that by the end of 2007, there will be 30 million more HD DVD notebooks sold, with 16 million of those to consumer, not corporate customers

A correction has been issued about that 30 million number released by Toshiba at their CEDIA press conference. It did seem a bit too optimistic even for laptop sales (since only the high end Qosimos and Satellites had the HD DVD drives.)

Quote:Toshiba projects sales of 1 million stand alone players total to date by end of 2007. The 30 million came from a excerp about the number of projected HDTV sales. Robert was in error and apologizes for the incorrect info

Originally posted by hughjars: Estimates are that by the end of 2007, there will be 30 million more HD DVD notebooks sold, with 16 million of those to consumer, not corporate customers

A correction has been issued about that 30 million number released by Toshiba at their CEDIA press conference. It did seem a bit too optimistic even for laptop sales (since only the high end Qosimos and Satellites had the HD DVD drives.)

Quote:Toshiba projects sales of 1 million stand alone players total to date by end of 2007. The 30 million came from a excerp about the number of projected HDTV sales. Robert was in error and apologizes for the incorrect info

Originally posted by nobrainer: a bad film looks even worse in hi-def format, especially when it costs £15 more than the dvd.

I totally agree, if they want to help Blu-Ray take off, stop trying to rob the early adopters. At the end of the day it's us they start the ball rolling buying into the new ideas at usually over inflated prices, they need to understand alot of people won't go and replace their dvd collection when there are so many up-scaling dvd players out at the moment. I think most people would happyly pay £15.00 for Blu-Ray/HD-DVD discs, but they need to understand this - Don't take the P*SS.